Heart
by sad little tiger
Summary: Sometimes, the road home is the only way out.
1. After the Storm

AN: This multi-chapter piece is set after the events of Season 5. I hope you enjoy my first foray into the True Blood fandom.

* * *

_I run and run as the rains come,_

_And I look up._

_On my knees and out of luck._

_I look up._

* * *

_May 12, 2014_

_7:14 pm_

They pulled the row boat up on the bank of the inlet just as the full moon rose over Gotland. There were three of them in all. They moved across the pebbled shore, silent and quick, as the sky faded from blue to purple to black behind them and the cold white stars winked.

It was a bitter October evening and all of Scandinavia was readying for the hard winter. Overhead, geese bleated as they flew in search of warmer places. In the distance, a wolf howled mournfully and nearby, a herd of roe deer leapt back into the deep darkness. Between the stones that marked Gettlinge's viking graves, the figures weaved and darted, disbanding and rejoining over and over. One of them stopped, his nose in the air, breathing deeply. He signaled to the others and they flanked him as he followed a trail.

Over soft-sloping hills and past an ancient windmill, they traveled together. The short, sparse grass crunched under their feet, even as they took cautious steps. They moved in unison, led by the male who was taking in lungful after lungful of the frigid Öland air.

They were hunting.

And as they drew closer to an old cottage on the ridge of the Baltic Sea, the wind picked up and blew angrily across the plains - a sort of reminder that they had not been invited. Below them, waves battered the cliff, the tide's ebb and flow like breath.

The trio stopped and watched the blurry orange glow of the single window.

"Well? Is it those idiots or not?" A lethargic drawl, feminine and terribly bored.

The man sniffed again. He turned his head thoughtfully, almost seeming to _taste_ the scent. "It's them... But..."

"But what?" The other asked, her voice clever and light with a hint of a British accent.

"I... Can't you hear that?" He frowned. The females turned back to the cottage, listening.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, Alcide," the first complained.

"What is it? What do you hear?" Her English counterpart was more trusting.

"The heartbeats. You can't hear 'em?" He watched their faces. "I count three."

"That can't be right, wolf. Eric's been dead for a fucking _millennia_." Pam rolled her eyes, her red fingernails glinting as her hands came to rest on her cocked hips. Their two-natured companion said nothing in reply. He was sticking to his guns. "Whatever," she sighed. "I'm going in."

Nora stared up Alcide, her lips parted and her wide moon eyes belying her nervousness. He grimaced as Pam trudged on across the frozen field, her heels sinking into the hillside with every wobbly step. She cursed as one pump was sucked almost all the way off, and then she righted herself with as much grace as she could muster and continued on.

"There's three people in there," he said again.

Nora's eyes gleamed in the cold light of the moon. "I believe you."

* * *

_May 10, 2013_

_4:13 am_

"Where are we goin'?"

I nearly jumped at the sound of her words. It has been two days since she'd spoken to me. Her voice is thin - beaten and worried and tired. Her appearance is much the same - skin sallow and tight, the youthful softness bleeding out hour by hour. She's wilting under all of it, all of this pressure and terror. I can only watch as her petals fold in and give up.

Across from me, our knees a hair's breadth from touching but so carefully _not_, she sits perfectly still. The tears dried up the night we fled, and now, in a state of perpetual shock, she barely breathes. She's as motionless as one of us.

Sookie's been reduced to a sorry statue of herself.

"Far away," I say, and shake out the New York Times in my hands. "As far away as we can get." I pretend to be reading. In actuality, I'm waiting. Waiting for _her_.

_Missing persons cases flood police stations across the country, all disappearances blamed on vampires_

_Public stakings increase ten-fold_

_Lorn Refrand, so-called "vampire king" of Vermont, calls for peace in Montpelier as human-vampire violence intensifies _

_Chaos reigns at local blood banks as starving vampires break and enter_

Such ugly times.

My eyes are drawn up by movement. She blinks for the first time in minutes. She's gazing out the window on her right, but I imagine she doesn't see anything. It's a clear night up in the sky - thousands of winking stars and darkness thick enough to cut. The jet's racing six hundred turbulence-free miles per hour, but inside the cabin, it feels like we haven't flown an inch.

"What're we gonna do?" she asks.

And then I can almost see her as a child; a nervous little thing in a butter-yellow dress, her feet swinging under her chair. She stares at me with those luminous brown eyes. I want nothing more than pull her to me, take her into me, reassure her. But I don't. "We're going to hide... _You're_ going to hide," I correct myself.

"What about -" she starts.

"Do not, Sookie. We can't." I keep my tone flat and strong, reaching back, searching desperately for the warrior I've always been.

"You'll stay with me?" Her plaintive voice - the one she saves up to torture only me. With her sweet backwoods accent and all of her big crocodile tears.

I know the answer is _yes_. She knows the answer is_ yes_. I won't say it aloud. But it's there, and it hangs between us... this _noose_ of my unfailing loyalty to her.

I'm disgusted with myself.

The arrogant _viking_, that stalwart _prince_... he's not there anymore. I've abandoned him. All for a half-breed mortal who has _always_ denied my advances, my protection. Worse, she's denied whatever is left of me that can... _feel_. I remind myself that I can't be fooled by her again. She's cunning and full of tricks; fae magick and light and sex. She's more dangerous to me than whatever Compton has become. I must keep telling myself this, when she's looking in my eyes, when she's begging.

And yet... I'm here. Taking her back to where I belong, back to the one place in this world I might still call home.

The only safe place left.

* * *

_May 12, 2014_

_2:04 am_

"Eric!"

Her smoky voice carried into the cold Scandinavian night. A salty fog engulfed the trio and the little house on the edge of the sea. Far off, a great horn sounded as a barge pushed through the straight.

"Eric!" She stumbled backward, trying to free a heel from the ground. "You bastard..."

Alcide continued to smell the air, his brow furrowing. Nora worried at her jacket, picking a loose thread, her eyes volleying between them.

"Two strong, one weak," he said. "... small. One small."

She nodded and followed him as he crept at the edge of the property. For a long moment, there was nothing at all - nothing but Pam's name-calling and the barge and the lap of waves and then -

"Jesus H. Christ, Eric, what the hell have you been -" She stopped. "_Sookie._"

In the doorway, the warmth of a fire thrown against her back, Sookie peered out from behind him. They looked well enough - the both of them. He'd filled out it seemed; his limbs somehow more athletic. And his hair - now a warm honey-blond... not the sickly pale it had been when they'd fled the country. His fangs glowed a brilliant white in moonlight, and even as he looked over his progeny, even as recognition was evident, they had yet to retract.

"Pam?" He asked, his voice coming out hoarse, desperate.

She hesitated, stunned. _All_ of them hesitated.

"Pam...," he said again, as if to convince himself she was indeed standing before him. His gaze moved over her, around her, to Alcide and Nora. His shoulders sagged with relief. "Bill faced the True Death?" He was full of hope.

But none of them answered him.

They were staring at Sookie's hand, resting protectively on her belly.

It was a very small heartbeat.


	2. Demons

_Under the weight of belief_

_You shiver and shake like a leaf._

_But death is a force, not a man on a horse;_

_I'll keep you safe while you sleep._

* * *

_May 12, 2013_

_7:23 pm_

It's just after sundown when I come back to life. I can feel the last rays of light fleeing to other side of the Earth, leaving this place safe and dark. For long while, I lie quite still staring up at the upholstered lid of the travel coffin and I imagine the time and the country I'll find myself in when I return to the world. My thoughts drift slowly over all that has happened - the Sanguinists, Compton... _Jason Stackhouse_. Jason, you poor bastard. And then I remember Sookie.

Will she speak tonight?

Perhaps a more important question is whether she'd even stayed with me once we'd landed.

She had every reason not to.

My mind reaches out. My blood bond with Sookie died nearly a year ago, but I search anyway, confident I'll be able to feel _something _of her. I encounter a breathing source of heat, roughly one hundred degrees, some distance from me. It's the only thing that's alive in this room.

It must be her.

If not Sookie, who then?

I unlatch the lock and listen to hiss of the light-tight seal releasing. A strange... _sensation_ overtakes me. It's something I haven't felt in centuries. Something I don't have a word for anymore. An anticipation of sorts. A kind of desire mixed with a bit of dread.

Could it be hope? _Hope. _

What would a creature who has lived over a thousand years possibly _hope_ for?

I push the lid up, peeking just over the edge of the coffin in the direction of all that heat.

It _is_ her.

She's watching me. Her jaw clenches and her chest rises with each breath; the rest of her though, is perfectly still. Exactly as I left her on the flight. She doesn't speak; just stares at me... through me with those haunted dark eyes. I see she hasn't changed clothes, hasn't showered. I wonder if she's moved at all.

Is she immobile out of fear, maybe? The belief that _he_ could follow us, even here, to Sweden, in daylight?

Something ancient and human tells me to comfort her. It should be so easy, eloquent even: _I'm sorry you lost another family member to the greed and violence of my kind... and yours, dear heart. I've stolen you away, to keep you safe. I'll meet the true death defending you. I'll care for you while you grieve, child of light. _

Or it could be as simple as _It will be okay, Sookie_.

But those words won't come. Nothing will come. The wounds we've inflicted on each other over these years still bleed. I'm muzzled by the past - by the angry rejections and the proclamations of hate and the threats we've both made. It's shameful. I sit up, and look away, scratching my head until my hair falls in my face. I can hear her shift in her seat - her muscles stiff and painful, having waited so patiently for me to wake.

We sit like this for an eternity, my back to her, her unblinking eyes on me, the horrible silence between us.

As instructed, the flight crew delivered us to a resort just outside of Gothenburg for the remainder of the day. It's a luxurious room, by human standards. The walls are a garnet so deep and rich one might fall in and the lighting is strategically moody, glittering in the reflection of a few conspicuously-placed mirrors. The four-poster bed, draped with ridiculously obvious million-count Egyptian sheets and piled high with goose-down pillows, is romantic, I'm sure. And the double sinks, with their artfully exposed pipes and pounded-metal bowls, reveal the nature of this room.

A honeymoon suite.

This is hardly a honeymoon.

I make a noise as if to clear my throat, though I haven't needed to do so for lifetimes. "We're going to my farm on Öland. It's an island that runs north to south... just off the coast... We'll be... secluded there for the most part..." I trail off. My voice is awkward and unnecessary.

She doesn't respond. She's a wall.

I get up and shower.

* * *

_Everything moves in slow-motion._

"_Bill! Please!" Her screams echo. The truck's diesel engine growls. "Please!"_

_She throws her hands out, her fingers spread, her arms rigid with desperation. But it doesn't matter._

_It's too late._

_No light. No power. _

_She'd tapped out the well of her magic days before in a childish fit of resentment._

_Jason closes his eyes._

_He's dead before he hits the ground._

_She wishes more than anything that it had been her._

* * *

I dislike the silence. I can hear all of her body's inner workings in this suffocating quietness. I can hear her stomach, empty and eating itself over her grief. I can hear her heart murmur and her sad lungs and the way one of her smallest ribs cracks when she breathes too deeply. I can hear _everything_.

It's enough to drive me insane. I want her to speak, to acknowledge me... to _anything_. Anything but this. If she would just talk, even incessantly, like she usually does... I would give anything to listen to her prattle on about the idiocies of human life, about Bill Compton, about something.

But she doesn't. She's a little doll. Stuffed and silent and stiff.

I don't believe Sookie Stackhouse has ever been so dead as she is right now.

The car rumbles over gravel and grass; the roads near my home have grown rocky with disuse. I fight a pang of regret. This is my birthplace, my motherland, and it's been decades since my last visit... perhaps more. I think of my parents then - soaking in a pool of their own blood. I think of the time and the emotions (now all distant and dull - other than the flames of vengeance, which still burn in me).

I think of how she must feel - alone now, with no one in the world.

I look up at her. She blinks slowly.

It's the longest car ride of my life.

* * *

She stands in the entryway and stares. Her eyes touch the loft above us, the stairs, the empty kitchen. She swallows, and says nothing.

The driver carries in my bags and her one belonging - a jacket. He leaves it all there, next to her - Sookie the Mannequin. He quietly shuts the front door behind him and then it's only us.

I shrug off my overshirt and toss to a chair.

"I'm sure you're hungry... I don't think she leaves food here...,' I say, if only to fill the silence. I haven't had to request _human needs_ of my servants for centuries. There's the issue of sustenance, and warmth... and _waste_. Do I even have a toilet on the premises? I can't recall. There was no time for preparation; we had to leave immediately.

Having a mortal so close, so needy, will be a challenge.

"I can call on my governess..." I stop to correct myself, realizing how long it's been since something alive was in my care. "I can call my... _housekeeper_, if you'd like... Although it is -" I check my watch. "Three in the morning."

Sookie turns her head, listens to me over her shoulder. She doesn't reply, and I don't know whether she's truly heard me. Perhaps she doesn't hear anything over the grief in her head.

I can see her clearly here, in the in-between light of the moon. Her clothes are stained and soiled with dirt and blood. Her hair, pulled back from her face at the crown, falls in waves to her shoulders. It's unkempt and tangled, the color of straw.

"Would you like to shower?" I'm certain I have a shower. Perhaps not a toilet, but definitely a shower. What to do if there's not a toilet? I think that maybe there is a toilet - there _must_ be. I left renovation oversight to a human. Surely a human would think to include a toilet, or a baday... even an _outhouse_ in the plans, correct?

And then she collapses to the floor.

* * *

She comes around slowly in my arms. I feel it in her legs first - the muscles twitching delightfully, fitfully... like a puppy, fast asleep. And then her head lolls to the left, to the right, her pretty brow furrowing. Soon after, her breathing hitches... and eventually, she snorts herself awake in my hands. If Sookie wasn't in such a sorry state, I might have smiled, perhaps even laughed.

I walk slowly down the path, away from the cottage, in the light of a thousand cold stars. The branches of green trees shade us, the moon dappling her face, reflecting in her wide dark eyes, like a little fawn. I look down at her and she relaxes, the grip she has on me easing.

For the first time in our true history... she trusts me. Total, unquestioning faith in a being that might decide the _taste_ of her is worth more than her life.

It almost aches.

_I'll watch over you while you grieve._

* * *

I take her to the only place I know that might bring her back - the deep hot springs of my island. The _lithia_ water here bubbles up eternally; I could smell it the minute we arrived on Öland. Salts and sulfur and earth. It's the scent of home. It's the scent of peace.

There's a ledge, from which I once dove as boy, before the death of my parents, before the wars, before the voyage to America. The rocks here have been worn smooth by centuries spent in the lazy run of the warm, potent water. I bring Sookie to the edge of the pool, pulling my shirt up over my head, letting my jeans fall to my feet.

She glances at my nakedness and then away. I ease into the spring, feeling the roil of it up my legs, over my thighs. I reach for her. Carefully, I untie her tennis shoes, one at a time, and work them off her delicate feet. She lets me unzip her dirty sweatshirt and push it from her shoulders. I move slowly to the fly of her pants. She doesn't stop me.

I muse, somewhat somberly, on how a few days earlier, this would have been a conquest of unparalleled proportions. I feel guilty about it now. Guilt makes me uncomfortable, as I suppose it should. It's a rare and fleeting emotion and it cuts through me, shocks me.

Sookie doesn't help me as I undress her. She's still and soft in my hands, not an ounce of fight left in her, like she's not the real Sookie... her insides gutted, her body a just shell. Her bra - a simple black thing - unclasps in the front. My hands tremble and I curse the willfulness of my arousal. I slip careful fingers under the straps and help them down her arms until the garment lays with the rest of her clothes.

I can't be sure how long my self-control will hold up, and so I decide to leave the panties, barely daring to even look at the cut of them.

My fangs descend of their own accord as I carry her into the water. I feel her stiffen.

"I won't," I whisper.

She stares at me - guileless and sorrowful. I'm struck then, by the weight of everything she's endured, even at my hands. I look away, the points of my fangs pricking the inside of my lip.

Her feet disappear first into the shadowy pool and then the rest of her, up to her creamy throat. I pull her across my lap, hold her tightly against my chest. She closes her eyes and lets me be with her this way.

We bathe there, under the ledge I loved as a boy.

She exists somewhere between life and sleep in my arms. I watch her and feel the spring healing us both.

Only the moon knows where we hide.

* * *

She stands in my kitchen with her bare feet and her wet hair, a heavy blanket around her shoulders. She shivers and doesn't speak.

I've shown her the bedroom. And we discovered the bathroom does indeed have a toilet.

But she doesn't lie down on the bed; she follows me back out to the parlor and waits. Silent.

I roll up the old Turkish rug, push it to the farthest wall.

The trap door creaks when I lift it - just as I remember.

There's nothing to really speak of beneath - no king-sized bed, no motion-sensor track lighting, no floating staircase. It's nothing like my room back in Bon Temps.

It's only a furrow in the dirt - shallow and small, like a rabbit's nest.

It's _home_.

She curls up around me. I listen to her breathe and smell the earth. She's warm and her heat sinks deep - all the way to my bones, until I'm nearly convinced I might be_ alive._

I have never prayed to a single god before. I haven't prayed to anything in centuries. But I pray on this morning... that she'll return from where ever she is.

I take Sookie to ground with me and hope she'll come back to life.


End file.
